ONE DEAD GOAT WOULD COST ME
WHOLE HERD

A Devon goat farmer fears his livelihood is under
threat because of the "draconian" way fallen stock are tested for a form
of brain disease.

William Thompson Coon says
that every time one of his goats dies, Government regulations mean his
whole herd has to be culled.

Mr Thompson Coon, who milks a herd of
180 goats at his farm just outside Buckfastleigh, says his fears arise
from the way the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra) tests dead goats for scrapie, a form of brain disease.

At
present, any goat that dies is taken away and tested for the disease. If
it is found to have scrapie, Government regulations dictate the rest of
the herd on the farm must automatically be destroyed.

Mr Thompson
Coon insists the way the issue is dealt with is unfair and has the
potential to destroy his business. He says MEP Neil Parish openly claims
the disease is "not considered to be dangerous to humans or a risk to man"
yet it is not being treated as such by Defra.

"Every time an animal
dies or has to be shot on the farm, I am running the risk of having the
whole lot killed.

"To ruin my business for an animal disease which
is said to be of no danger to man is nonsensical. The punishment doesn't
fit the crime."

Mr Thompson Coon runs the farm with his wife Sue,
and has found a niche market for his milk with Ticklemore Cheese, in
Totnes. The firm has developed a range of goats' cheeses out of milk from
his pedigree animals. The business has proved a major success, but he says
he cannot plan for the future because of the fear of a goat getting
scrapie.

His plight has now been taken up by Totnes MP Anthony
Steen, who has written to Defra through the department's Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State Ben Bradshaw, MP for Exeter.

And Mr
Parish, MEP for the South West and a Somerset farmer, has also vowed to
take up the issue with the European Commission. He said the disease was
"not contagious".

"You need to slaughter the goat that has the
disease and incinerate it if necessary but not the whole herd. It seems to
me a draconian measure," he said.

But until something is done to
change the system, Mr Thompson Coon says the future of his farm is not in
his hands.

He has put extra stringent controls in place restricting
who can enter his farmland since the outbreak of foot and mouth disease.
But he says this was ignored recently and a dirty lorry was driven on to
his farm carrying a load of fallen animals, to collect a dead
goat.

He claims more safeguards are in place for sheep which are
found to have a brain disease, or cattle which have BSE, which remove the
need for the whole herd on a farm to be culled. He now wants similar
initiatives to be undertaken for goats.

A spokesman for Defra said
the policy towards scrapie had been adopted because it had the potential
to "mask" underlying BSE. Compensation would be paid to the farmer for the
loss of animals. If there were concerns about vehicles entering land or
the cleanliness of lorries, they should be raised with Defra, he
said.